Housing affordability 'significantly worse today' than a year ago: Broker

Even though housing prices have decreased in many markets across Canada, housing costs remain elevated and affordability is “significantly worse today than what it was a year ago”, according to John Pasalis, president and broker at Realosophy.

In an interview with Bloomberg Markets on Thursday, Pasalis said homeownership still remains out of reach for many Canadians and it’s not getting better anytime soon.

“It's actually significantly worse [housing affordability] than what it was when rates were low and the reason is, even though prices have declined in many markets across Canada and around 20 per cent in the Toronto area; the fact is when you look at housing costs today, even though prices are lower with rates where they are it's actually more expensive today than if you bought at the peak of the market,” he said.

“So it's more expensive to actually buy a home [now] and of course rents have surged, so housing affordability is actually significantly worse today than when it was even a year ago.”